The Art of Coaching

You owe it to yourself to get a coach and take your career to The next level. A good coach will hold you accountable And make sure you get the results you desire. Your learning curve will be shortened because coaches are ruthlessly Results oriented. Coaching brings our your potential and helps you to attain and accomplish the goals you set. Also coaching puts you on the journey to success by making You more efficient, effective and creative.

The coaching process is designed to bring out your potential and take you to the next level. It serves as a mechanism which will allow you to experience long-term growth and development, at the same time improving your performance. A coach should create a condition that allows for continuous development. It should be noted that the primary function of coaching is to lessen a variance or rather close the gap between your current level of achievement and the desired level you have targeted in conjunction with your coach. There are several avenues you can pursue in this venture. First it can be one workshop or it can be a myriad of interactions.

Your coach should assess your performance by reviewing the situation as it stands today. Next you and your coach should sit down and define achievable realistic goals, explore several ideas by brainstorming, and then put a plan of action into place with episodes of follow up. Initially you might think you don’t need a coach, then I suggest you think again. Anyone that has ever achieved any level of greatness in any endeavor has had a coach. Michael Jordan arguably the greatest player to have played the game of basketball, had a coach. Professional athletes have coaches for different areas such as conditioning, health and nutrition, free throw shooting, blocking, batting, passing, and defense.

Any area that you desire to excel in or reach perfection it is a good idea to get a coach. Consider the business executive looking for a promotion. They center in on those key areas which need enhancing and they get a coach to expedite the process. Perhaps they are looking for image enhancement, improvement in productivity, improving on sales techniques, social skills, communication skills, or maybe presentation skills. The advantages of having a coach are innumerable. Also the coaching process in continual. The following is an analysis of how the process works:

To start you and your coach will agree mutually upon a set of objectives, goals or achievements to strive for during this interaction. The next step is for you and your coach to breakdown, analyze and discuss the circumstances as they exist today. Example: Coach: I notice when you make sales calls your approach is mechanical and contrived. It sounds rehearse and insincere as though you are reading a script.

Step three allows you and your coach to come together to discuss every possible initiative available for accomplishing the desired result.

Example: Perhaps you can listen to some of the other seasoned sales representatives as they make sales calls. Or we can record your sales pitch and play it back and correct your weaknesses and at the same time build upon your strengths.

The next phase calls for planning an action process.

The next step allows you and your coach to put the action plan or process to work.

The next step allows you and your coach to see what is working and what is not working. Are the stated goals being met or at least is there a process improvement over the previous week , month or quarter.